*BOEING AT THE TROUGH: The Bush Administration’s plans to lease 100 aircraft from Boeing as fuel tankers-for a price greater than outright purchase of the aircraft-has attracted opposition from both left and right. But the sweetheart deal, designed to keep Boeing’s 767 line going, appears set to sail through Congress, thanks to the support of Washington Senators Maria Cantwell (D.) and Patty Murray (D.), as well as House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R.-Ill.). All three have Boeing facilities in their states.
And-oh yeah-there’s also the Daschle connection. As HUMAN EVENTS detailed last year (see May 20, 2002 issue), Boeing helps bankroll the lifestyle of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D.-S.D.) by pumping up his wife’s paycheck. Linda Hall Daschle lobbies House members-not senators, she says-on behalf of the aviation giant and other government contractors. Last May, Daschle denied that the money his family receives as a result of his wife’s work with Boeing affects his judgment.
*NOT SO KEENE: Many conservatives are not very happy these days with longtime American Conservative Union (ACU) Chairman David Keene. Keene, in his May 21 column in The Hill newspaper, gave his "personal" endorsement to Pennsylvania liberal Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (lifetime ACU rating: 42%)-who is locked in a tough primary battle with Rep. Pat Toomey, a solid conservative (lifetime ACU rating: 96%). "I may be going soft, but I like him," Keene wrote of Specter. "I like his honesty and his willingness to listen." Was it honesty, some conservatives wonder, that drove Specter to vote "Not Proved" on impeachment articles citing President Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice?
*‘VILLAGE IDIOT’ OUTFOXES DEMS: Since George W. Bush took the reins of the Republican Party, the GOP has corralled control of the entire federal government, and is well-positioned to gain an even bigger congressional majority in 2004. Some Democrats appear to be getting desperate. Colorado Democratic Party Vice Chairwoman Julia Hicks recently was quoted by the New York Times as suggesting to a group of Democratic activists that the key to a Democratic resurgence might lie in depicting Bush as "the village idiot from Texas."
*CHILDLESS CREDIT? If the child tax credit is extended to those who pay no federal taxes, then what’s to stop it from also going to those who have no children? This may seem an absurd proposition, but not to longtime observers of the U.S. Senate, who point out that as it is, only two senators-conservatives Don Nickles (R.-Okla.) and Jim Inhofe (R.-Okla.)-stood for principle and voted against a Senate bill that extended the child tax credit to people who do not pay a penny in federal income taxes (see rollcall next week).
The bill also included increased customs fees-a tax hike-to offset the cost of giving Tax credits to non-taxpayers. The New York Times had aggressively and misleadingly pressed for redistributing taxpayers’ money to non-taxpayers by suggesting these non-taxpayers had been unjustly denied a tax credit due to them because the original tax cut bill did not grant them a federal subsidy equal to the child credit that went to actual taxpayers.
*CONSERVATIVES COUNTER: The House has not approved the child subsidy-and conservatives there are resisting. "The debate over the ‘refundable child tax credit’ isn’t a debate about a tax issue," says Rep. Sue Myrick (R.-N.C.), chairwoman of the Republican Study Committee. "It’s a welfare issue. When someone is already exempt from taxes, and still gets a government check, it’s not a tax rebate-it’s public assistance. That money comes from the people who do pay taxes."
*LIEBERMAN’S AMNESTY: Echoing an earlier proposal from presidential rival Rep. Dick Gephardt (D.-Mo.), Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D.-Conn.) called for an amnesty for many illegal aliens in a recent trip to Arizona. "Is there any shred of evidence that undocumented Mexican immigrants to America have had any relationship to the threat of terrorism? The answer is no," he said, according to the Tucson Citizen. "If they have been here as undocumented immigrants for a period of time and they lived within the law and paid their taxes and contributed to their communities, then they have earned the right to become full-fledged Americans."
*NOT A LOTT: At a massive Republican fundraising dinner at the Washington Convention Center last month, the Washington Post reports, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R.-Miss.) approached a group of reporters. One asked Lott if he would help the President win reelection next year. Sure, said Lott, before adding: "He didn’t help me when I needed it. But this isn’t about me."
